A scarcity of fresh water is a serious global challenge that is predicted to worsen in the future as demand continues to rise due to population growth, increased industrialization, and greater energy needs. Because seawater represents such a vast supply, desalination has become an important and promising approach to meet this ever-increasing demand for fresh water. Membrane-based separation of water using such techniques as reverse osmosis (RO) and capacitive deionization (CDI) are currently the most popular membrane processes because of their greater energy efficiency and capability for use at industrial scales. However, RO and CDI still have the drawback of requiring significant amounts of energy to operate. Particularly with the view of practicing desalination cost effectively and on a large scale, there would be a particular benefit in a water purification method with lower energy demands.